TRAI Releases Congestion Report for Q1

TRAI said networks in January-March had congestion levels above the permissible limit in 76 places compared to 66 such places in the previous quarter.

Network congestion leads to call drops and deterioration in voice quality. Besides, this is also the primary reason why consumers have to make repeated calls to get through.

Among private service providers as of March 2009, Reliance Telecom and Idea both have congestion in 18 PoIs each, followed by Reliance Communications (16 PoIs) and Vodafone (11 PoIs).

The circles most affected due to point of interconnection (PoI) congestion are Bihar (13 PoIs), followed by Andhra Pradesh and Kolkata (8 PoIs each), Assam, and Himachal Pradesh (7 PoIs each) and Mumbai (6 PoIs), TRAI said in a statement.

The regulator track network congestion by evaluating the congestion levels at the points of interconnection (PoI), which are places where mobile traffic is exchanged between the networks of different operators.

The regulator has set a benchmark of less than 0.5% for this parameter. This means out of 200 calls between two operators, only one call should face the problem of congestion.

Bharti Airtel, which so far had the most congested network, has shown a rapid turnaround and now boasts of one of the lowest congestion levels, according to a TRAI report.

Also in an earlier report by TRAI (released in January 2009) had said that the areas most affected states due to the congestion are Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Mumbai, UP-W, and Himachal Pradesh.

While many believe CIO's role is evolving and that he's occupying a key place in the boardroom, a recent study brings to light that more than half of the CIO, CTO or IT admin staff (55%) are not thanked by colleagues for carrying out essential IT tasks on their behalf.